Adult

EFF to courts: Don't name alleged porn pirates

Accusing someone in a federal lawsuit of illegally downloading pornography is by itself so potentially embarrassing that it puts undue pressure on an accused person to settle, a watchdog group has told judges in Texas and West Virginia.

Several porn studios have alleged in copyright complaints in those states that thousands of people illegally shared adult films via peer-to-peer networks and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, one of the best known advocates for tech companies and Internet users, has filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of the defendants.

EFF has asked the courts hearing the cases to "block requests [by … Read more

Porn maker sues 7,098 alleged film pirates

In a move sure to outrage both file-traders on BitTorrent networks and legal watchdogs, a well-known pornographer has filed a federal copyright suit against 7,098 individuals.

Axel Braun Productions filed the complaint Friday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia, alleging that the defendants illegally shared the adult film "Batman XXX: A Porn Parody." The film was written and directed by Axel Braun and distributed by Vivid Entertainment, one of the country's best known porn studios.

In an interview about the suit with Xbiz Newswire, a publication that follows the adult-film … Read more

Porn studios to subpoena accused file sharers

The latest wave of copyright litigation against illegal file sharing was ignited by indie filmmakers, including the producers of "The Hurt Locker."

Getting into the action now are creators of such titles as "Tokyo Teens" and "Pornstar Superheroes." Three adult-film producers will soon begin sending subpoenas to Internet service providers, or ISPs, across the United States in an effort to learn the identities of people they claim shared their movies without permission over the Internet, Kenneth Ford, the attorney representing the filmmakers, said today.

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of … Read more

The 4chan porn leak: First of many?

The Web probably looks a lot less anonymous and private to the thousands of people whose identities were posted to the Internet this weekend alongside the names of the pornographic films they are accused of downloading.

ACS: Law, a law firm based in Great Britain that tracks down alleged illegal file sharers for the porn industry, saw its database compromised over the weekend caused by members of the Internet forum 4chan. In addition to private e-mails and financial data belonging to the law firm, the names of people whom ACS: Law has accused of downloading unauthorized copies of porn movies … Read more

IE9 beta takes a bow

  Links from Thursday's episode of Loaded: Microsoft releases beta version of Internet Explorer 9 Craigslists rules out reopening adult services Facebook competitor Diaspora releases source code Apple iOS 4.2 brings the iPad up to par Playstation 3 firmware update includes 3D Blu-ray support

Craigslist: We won't reopen adult-services section

Facing concerns that it's facilitating child prostitution, a representative of personals listing site Craigslist confirmed in remarks prepared for a congressional hearing Wednesday that it will not be reopening the "adult services" section that it shut down earlier this month after pressure from lawmakers.

William Clint Powell, Craigslist's director of customer service and law enforcement relations, said in the hearing, held by the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, that going after Craigslist would do little good and that "those who formerly posted adult services ads on Craigslist will now … Read more

Craigslist urged to shut erotic-services ads worldwide

A hundred organizations fighting sex trafficking have joined the chorus of voices asking Craigslist to remove its erotic services section worldwide as the company has in the U.S.

In a letter sent Tuesday (PDF) to Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster and founder Craig Newmark, human rights groups throughout the world thanked the company for bringing down its adult and erotic ads in the U.S. But the groups said that these services, where trafficked children and women are sold for sex, remain open in 250 cities worldwide. And in not making the same improvements globally, the groups told Craigslist that … Read more

Craigslist removes 'censored' bar from site

Is this the final capitulation?

After the mysterious disappearance of its Adult Services section, Craigslist uttered a symbolic protest by replacing it with a black bar that read "censored" in white type.

Wednesday, however, even that black bar was gone. Any sense that Craigslist was protesting at its manhandling by the combined forces of 17 attorneys general has now been entirely removed, leaving only the memories of nights of promise and days of satisfaction.

Despite the protests of former sex workers and esteemed academics, it seems that Craigslist has, indeed, given up on its Adult Services section for … Read more

The 404 660: Where is that Yu in the background? (podcast)

Happy belated Labor Day! Today's show title comes courtesy of 404 listener bitMorph3r, who spotted yours truly riding my bike through the background shot in an episode of Michio Kaku's Sci-Fi Science. Check out the video clip here, and thanks again to bitMorph3r's hawk eye for the shot!

On today's episode of The 404 Podcast we say goodbye to Craigslist Adult Services, revisit the Duke Nuken Forever saga, argue over the new iTunes logo, show you how to jailbreak a PS3 with a TI-84 graphing calculator, and get scratch silly over the bedbug infestation sweeping the Google office in New York City.

After much controversy, the Craigslist finally blocked access to its "adult services" section over the weekend. Head over to Craigslist.org and you'll now see an ugly black "CENSORED" bar covering the location of the original link.

Founder Craig Newmark is so far silent on the issue, and it's unclear at this point if the change is temporary or permanent, but Interpervs can still get their paid freak on using other Web services that you can research in Gawker's latest "Post-Craigslist Guide to Buying Sex Online."

Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced a new iTunes logo to go along with iTunes version 10, but not everyone is satisfied with the redesign. One user, Josh Kopac, decided to take it upon himself to e-mail Jobs and express his distaste, saying he "enjoyed the presentation today. But...this new iTunes logo really sucks..." to which Steve replied, "We disagree." Sometimes two words is all it takes to dead-end an argument!

After 14 years of painful waiting, Duke Nukem Forever might finally see the light of day after all. According to Jeff's report, 2K Games recently announced that Gearbox Software is taking the rights to its development, which is supposedly in the final stages. As usual, Jeff is skeptical that the game will come out before the end of the century, especially after all the controversy and drama surrounding its release. Check out this article in Wired for the full story.

All these stories coming your way on today's episode of CNET's The 404 Podcast! Enjoy!

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